Philip is reported as a captain of Virginia militia in the Revolution as noted in "Roster of Revolutionary Soldiers in Georgia, Volume 2" in an entry about his son Coleman Pendleton (page 53).

Philip is also named as a captain for Virginia in the Revolution in the biography of his grandson Alexander Shaw Pendleton in "A History of Savannah and South Georgia, Volume 2" (page 919).

This same volume gives a history of the family which originated in Norwich, Lancashire, England. The first in the family to come to the colonies was Philip Pendleton, born 1650, who arrived about 1674 to stay for six years and then returned to England. However, he soon recrossed the Atlantic and "took up residence" in King and Queen County, Virginia and married Isabella Hart (or Hurt). He might have soon relocated to Caroline County since his son Henry Pendleton records his birth there in 1683. Henry married early in 1701 to Mary Taylor, the daughter of Mary Gregory and James Taylor, who was gg-grandfather of President Zachary Taylor. Henry is named on the tax list for King and Queen Co. in 1704. Both Philip and his son Henry died in Caroline County in 1721, but the family carried on with the next generation in the form of James Pendleton (1702 - 1763) who became the high sheriff of Culpeper County in 1738 (possibly married to Elizabeth Anderson). And he was the father of Philip who served as the captain in Revolution for Virginia. The biography notes that a family Bible was a cherished heirloom which recorded the service of Philip in the war.

Philip married Martha Awbrey ca. 1766. She was the daughter of Chandler Awbrey.

Children of Philip Pendleton and Martha Awbery all born in Virginia:

- Elizabeht Pendleton, b. 1765 in Culpeper county, d. 1804 Pittsylvania Co.; marru=ied James Motley August 13, 1785 in Pittsylvania;
- James Pendleton, b. 1767, d. 1841 in Kentucky; married Sarah Bell, daughter of James Bell of Staunton, Va.;
- Martha Pendelton;
- Rebecca Pendleton, b. 1768?, married William Munkers in 1795 in Washington Co., Va., see biography link below);
- Gabriel Pendleton, married Margaret Williams May 16, 1786 in Augusta Co., Va.;
- Philip Pendleton, b, 1769, d. 1873?);
- Joseph Pendleton;
- Sarah Pendleton;
- Robert Pendleton;
- Coleman Pendleton, b. Aug. 4, 1780, Culpeper Co.;
- Henry Pendleton.

Philip became the the Clerk of the Vestry for St Mark's Parish in Culpeper Co. in 1771. By 1780 he was Lay Reader, but then moved the family to Pittsylvania Co. where he is recorded in the tax records for 1785 with a family of ten white people.

There are also court records for 1785 which bring into question the character of Philip Pendleton, and one of the is quite disturbing.

In Sept. his wife Martha lodged a complaint against him, but the order was dismissed.

In the same month Robert Williams, Deputy Attorney for the Commonwealth of Virginia, appeared in court presenting the charge that Philip had tried three times to rape his daughter Sarah. The court ordered the sheriff, Abraham Shelton, to take Philip into safe custody until the charge could be processed "by the due course of law."

Before the month was out the case was heard in court, but no witnesses appeared for the prosecution as Robert Williams protested against the proceedings. Philip declared he was not guilty, and with no evidence of a crime, he was acquitted and discharged out of custody.

However, in November Philip was back in court for breaching the peace against one Rawley Corbin. Philip was again taken into custody until he could post bond for his good behavior. The sum was set at 30 pounds and 15 pounds in securities provided by one Beverly Willard for his good behavior for a year toward the commonwealth and Corbin.

The peace did not last long since in December Philip was again taken into custody by the sheriff until he could post 500 pounds for his good behavior and another 250 pounds each by those providing securities for his complying with the court order.

Martha must have divorced Philip at some point since one further notice, undated, is a court order for Philip to pay Martha 5 pounds alimony immediately and another 5 pounds in three months until the case for the alimony can be heard.

So the respected Philip Pendleton, a captain in the war and a supporter of the church, became a fixture in court in the latter part of 1785. What was the true nature of these events and their causes has not been preserved, and so we are left to wonder what happened to the man. Did he attack his daughter, or is that just the surface story that hides a truth that has some other meaning. Was Beverly Willard involved with him, and was the dispute with Rawley Corbin related to it, or was that an unrelated matter?

Whatever the case, Philip seems to disappear and the only other notice of him is that he might have gone to Kentucky and perhaps died there in 1811.

------------------------

Because famed patriot Edmund Pendleton was a son of Henry Pendleton and thus Philip's uncle, the Pendleton family's ancestry was published in "Some Prominent Virginia Families, Volume 4":

"The arms of Pendleton are taken from English records and are described as follows:

Arms — Gules, an inescutcheon argent, between four escallops (or shells)
or.

Crest — On a chapeau gules, turned up ermine, a demi-dragon, wings expanded, or, holding an escallop (or shell) argent.

Motto — Maneo Qualis Maneham."


"Three miles from Manchester, in Lancashire County, England, is the town of Pendleton, known as a portion of Salfordborough. Over the door of one of the inns swings the arms of the Pendleton family, exactly like those brought to America by the emigrant, Philip Pendleton. Some little distance off is the manor house, occupied still by a family of Pendletons, and around the old church are the tombs of departed Pendletons. Here we pause, feeling
ourselves aliens in our father's house. Under that roof tree are the records that would carry us back along the line of English history until we found the ancestor whose bravery in the Crusades, won him the right to place upon his shield the silver pilgrim's shells, which form a distinctive feature of the coat-of-arms. The
family evidently belonged to the English gentry, a purer and prouder distinction oftentimes than many of the titles which have changed hands and family names many times as they come down the avenue of ages.

"The first name upon the Virginia record is that of George Pendleton, Esquire, of the town of Pendleton, Lancashire, England. His son was George Pendleton, who married, sometime in the fifteenth century, Elizabeth Pettingall, daughter of John Pettingall, Gentleman, of jSTorwich, Norfolk County. George Pendleton moved to Norwich, and was buried at St. Stephen's, Norwich, in 1613. His eldest son was Henry Pendleton, who married in 1605 Susan Carmyer, at St. Simeon and St. Jude's. He was buried on July 15, 1635, at St, Stephen's, Norwich. His third son was Henry Pendleton who married Elizabeth . This gives four generations on English soil, carrying us from Pendleton near Manchester, to Norwich.

"In 1613, Sir John Pettus and his brother Thomas Pettus both made wills, remembering their cousins, Henry and Susan Pendleton, of Norwich, leaving them property in that city. These gentlemen lived at Cristree, St. Edmund's, near Norwich. Thomas Pettus, the son of one of these men, was one of the early councilors of the Colony, and probably influenced his cousins to come to Virginia. The two sons of Henry and Elizabeth Pendleton came to Virginia in 1674, Philip, a young teacher, and Nathaniel, a minister of the Church of England. Nathaniel died very soon, leaving no children.

"I. Philip Pendleton the emigrant, was born in 1650. He
was, therefore, twenty-four years of age, when he came to Virginia in 1674. In 1680 he returned to England, and tradition says he was married, and his wife died. There may be no foundation for this. In 1682 he returned to the colony and married Isabella Hart, or Hurt. He is said to have lived in New Kent County, but the parish records of that county, which are very early and very full, do not contain the names of any Pendletons. It is more probable that he lived in King and Queen County, Va. He signed a deed in Essex County in 1677, and his son, Henry,
signed one there in 1719, and is designated as being from King and Queen County, Va. Philip died in 1721, the same year his son Henry died, and the same year his illustrious grandson, Edmund Pendleton, was born. He was probably a man of quiet tastes and not progressive enough to build up a large estate, as many of his contemporaries did. Issue:

"I. Henry Pendleton, b. 1083; d. 1721. Married (1701),
Mary Taylor, of Carlisle, England. She married second,
Edward Walkins, and died 1772, aged 83 years.
II. Elizabeth Pendleton.
III. Rachel Pendleton. Married John Vass.
IV. Catherine Pendleton. Married John Taylor, brother of
Mary Taylor.
V. John Pendleton, b. 1691 ; d. 1775. Married Tinsley, of Madison Co., Va.
VI. Isabella Pendleton, married Richard Thomas. The descendants of these are numerous. They both took out
land in King and Queen and Spottsylvania Counties in
1728. Richard Thomas died in 1748, and his widow,
Isabella, went to live in Drysdale Parish, Caroline
Count, Va. Their children are uncertain as to number and name. There is a Rowland Thomas and a Joseph Thomas mentioned with her in deeds of land, but
the relationship is not defined. It is certain though,
that her daughter, Mary, married Col. Thomas Barbour.

"Catherine Thomas married Ambrose Barbour (Bar-
bour Family, pp. 136-7, St. Mark's Parish, by Dr.
Slaughter.) Her son, Richard Thomas, married (1753)
Mildred Taylor, Orange County, Va. Their children
were Richard, George, James, Thomas (married 1781,
Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Pendleton), Sarah
Mildred (married John Piper).
VII. Philip Pendleton-, married Elizabeth Pollard.


"Second Generation.

"II. Henry Pendleton (Philip), the eldest son of Philip Pendleton, the emigrant, and Isabella Hart, b. 1683. Married (1701) Mary Taylor, daughter of James Taylor, of Carlisle, England, and his second wife, Mary Gregory. Henry was eighteen and Mary thirteen years of age. He died 1731, the same year his youngest son, Edmund, was born. His wife married, second, Ed. Watkins, d. 1770. Of his five sons, the oldest, James, and the third, Nathaniel, were for many years clerks of the vestry and lay-readers at the small chapels of St. Mark's Parish; and Philip, the son of
James, was clerk in 1782, when the vestry books closed. His two daughters married brothers, James and William Henry Gaines. His youngest son, Edmund, though without his father's care, made for himself a name which will be known and remembered as long as Virginia's sons read her history. By his large circle of nephews and nieces, many of them his own age, he was loved and revered, and the tradition of his kindness and ever ready help is handed down through nearly every branch of the family. Almost all the Pendletons in Virginia trace their descent from Henry Pendleton
and Mary Taylor. They had issue :

"I. James Pendleton, b. 1703, d. 1761. Married Mrs. Mary
Lyall, of Lancaster County, Va.
II. Philip Pendleton, b. 1704, d. 1770. Married Martha
III. Mary Pendleton, b. about 1703. Married William Gaines.
IV. Isabella Pendleton, b. before 1715. Married James
Gaines.
V. Nathaniel Pendleton, b. 1715, d. 1794. Married his
first cousin, Miss Clayton.
VI. John Pendleton, b. 1719; d. 1799. Married, first. Miss
James ; second. Miss Madison.
VII. Edmund Pendleton, b. Sept. 1721, d. Richmond, Oct. 26,
1805, patriot and jurist. Married, first (1741), Elizabeth Roy, d. same year. Married, second (1743), Sarah Pollard, b. 1735; living in 1793, but childless.

"Note. — The foregoing paper was found after the death of Edmund Pendleton, recorded in his family Bible. It was then one hundred and thirty years since the common ancestor of the Virginia Pendletons came from Norwich to the Colony of Virginia, settling in what is now called King and Queen County, Va. At that time it was included in the boundaries
of New Kent.

"II. Elizabeth Pendleton, (Philip). Married Samuel Clayton,
of Caroline County, Va. Issue :
I. Major Philip Clayton, of Catalpa. Married Anne Cole-
man. Issue :
I. Major Philip Clayton, of Revolutionary Army.
II. Lucy Clayton. Married William Williams.
III. Susan Clayton. Married Col. James Slaughter.
IV. Daughter Clayton*. Married her first cousin, Nathaniel
Pendleton.
V. Daughter Clayton. Married Cuttenden.
II. Nancy Clayton. Married Jeremiah Strother.
II. Isabella Pendleton. (Philip). Married Richard Thomas.

"Issue :
I. Mary Thomas. Married Thomas Barbour.
II. Catherine Thomas. Married Ambrose Barbour. (See
Barbour Family.)

"II. Catherine Pendleton- (Philip). Married John Taylor, son
of James Taylor, of Carlisle, England. Issue :

"I. Edmund Taylor. Married Annie Lewis.
II. John Taylor. Married Miss Lynne.
III. James Taylor. Married Anne Pollard.
IV. Philip Taylor Married Maiy Walker.
V. William Taylor. Married Miss Anderson.
VI. Joseph Taylor. Married Frances Anderson.
VII. Mary Taylor. Married Eobert Penn.
I. Gabriel Penn.
VIII. Catherine Taylor, Married Moses Penn.
I. John Penn, one of the "Signers."
IX. Isabella Taylor. Married Samuel Hopkins.
X. Elizabeth Taylor. Married, first Lewis; married, second, Bullock.

"II. John Pendleton (Philip), second son of the elder Philip (he who came from England), b. about 1691, and emigrated in company with his younger brother, Philip, to the County of Amherst, and settled on the eastern slope of the Tobacco Row Mountain. Some years thereafter, married Miss Tinsley, of. Madison County, Va., by whom he had thirteen children, eight boys and five girls. He continued to reside in Amherst until his death, which occurred about the time of the Revolution (1775). He was buried in the old Pendleton burying ground, near the "Tobacco Row,"' on the farm now owned by Ambler. Issue :

"I. Benjamin Pendleton^.
II. Isaac Pendleton^.
III. John Pendleton^.
IV. Edmund Pendleton^

"The above four emigrated, immediately after the
Revolution, to Kentucky, where many of their descend-
ants continue to reside. Soon after their removal to
Kentucky, the wife and two children of one of them
were captured by the Indians and never heard of after-
wards.
V. Richard Pendleton. Married Miss Tinsley, his first
cousin; left numerous descendants.
VI. Reuben Pendleton. Married Ann Garland, sister of
David S. Garland, of Amherst County, Va.
VII. James Pendleton. Married Miss Rucker.
VIII. William Pendleton
IX. Polly Pendleton. Married Whitton.
X. Sally Pendleton. Married Mahone.
XI. Prances Pendleton. Married Cambden.
XII. Betty Pendleton. Married Baldock.
XIII. Margaret Pendleton. Married Miles.

"II. Philip Pendleton (Philip^), married Elizabeth Pollard.
Issue :
I. Benjamin Pendleton. Married Mary Macon.
II. Daughter Pendleton'.

"Third Generation.
III. James Pendleton' (Henry, Philip), was the oldest son of Henry and Mary (Taylor) Pendleton, b. about 1701-3; d. 1761. He lived in Culpeper County, Va., and was a very active member of St. Mark's Parish, being often warden and lay reader. Married (1727) Mrs. Mary Lyall, a widow, of Lancaster County, Va.

"Issue :
I. James Pendleton. Married Catherine Bowie, daughter
of Gov. Bowie, of Maryland.
II. Henry Pendleton. Married Ann Thomas.
III. PHILIP PENDLETON. Married. (NOTE - THIS IS THE PHILIP PENDLETON IDENTIFED ABOVE AS THE CAPTAIN IN THE REVOLUTION)
IV. Annie Pendleton. Married Taylor.

"III. Philip Pendleton (Henry, Philip), b. about 1704 or
1705. The record of his residence, with the names of some of his children, is lost. He probably lived in Caroline County, Va., because he is mentioned in the only record of that county not burned during the Civil War, as witness in a suit in 1768, and as having travelled 30 miles to attend Court. His wife is supposed to have been named Martha , because of a deed of sale to his step father, Edward Watkyns, in Culpeper County, Va., signed by Philip Pendleton and his wife, Martha. He is said to have had
fifteen children, five of whom were daughters, all married, according to the records of Judge Pendleton's bible. Of these five daughters :

"Mary Pendleton. Married Col. Edward Waller, second clerk of Spottsylvania.
Jemima Pendleton. Married Richard Gaines, her first cousin.
Martha Pendleton. Married Massey Thomas, of Culpeper County, Va.
Mildred Pendleton.
Judith Pendleton.

"Henry Pendleton. This is proved by the deed in Orange
County, Va., of land left to him, to go after his decease
to his sister, Mary Waller, recorded in 1742. A great-
granddaughter of Philip mentions sons of his :
John Pendleton.
Philip Pendleton.
Edmund Pendleton.
Some of them probably moved West, as did his daugh- ter, Martha. His youngest son, Micajah, lived and died in Amherst County, Va. Philip Pendleton d. 1788. We have records of only four children.
III. Nathaniel Pendleton (Henry, Philip. b. 1715; d. 1794,
Culpeper County, Va. Married his second cousin. Miss Clayton, daughter of his first cousin. Philip Clayton, son of his aunt, Elizabeth Pendleton, and Samuel Clayton. Nathaniel lived in Culpeper County, and was very active in the Parish of St. Mark's. Issue :
I. Nathaniel Pendleton, b. 1746; d. 1820. Married Susan
Bard.
II. William Pendleton b. 1748. Married Elizabeth Daniel.
III. Henry Pendleton, b. 1750; d. in South Carolina, Jan., 1789. He is said to have married Anne Knight.
IV. Philip Pendleton, b. .1752. Married Miss Pendleton.
Moved to Martinsburg, Va.
V. Mary Pendleton. Married John Williams.
VI. Elizabeth Pendleton. Married Benjamin Tutt.
VII. Susanna Pendleton. Married Mr. Wilson.

"III. John Pendleton, fourth son of Henry and Mary (Taylor)
Pendleton, b. 1719; d. 1799, was in his 58th year at the beginning of the Revolutionary war. He held various offices of honour and trust in the Colony of Virginia, and in the Senate. He was appointed by a convention of delegates of the counties and corporations in the Colony of Virginia, at Richmond Town, on Monday, July 17, 1775, to sign a large issue of Treasury N'otes. These notes were issued upon the credit of the colony, taxes and duties having been suspended to suit the distressed circumstances of the
Colonists. The issue was about £350,000, and the ordinance read :
'Of the notes to be so issued, 50,000 shall be of the denomination of one shilling, and shall be signed by John Pendleton, Jr., Gentleman, which notes last named shall be on the best paper.' John Pendleton was appointed, by the Governor of Virginia, judge of her courts, at a time when they were composed of the leading men of the Colony. (Taken from Hening's Statutes at large, 9th Vol.)
Married, first. Miss James; second, Sarah Madison, cousin of President James Madison. Issue by first marriage :

"I. Edmund Pendleton, b. 1744. Married (1764) Mildred
Pollard.
II. John Pendleton.
III. Elizabeth Pendleton.
IV. Mary Pendleton.

"Issue by second marriage:
V. Henry Pendleton, b. 1763; d. 1832. Married, first,
Alcey Ann Winston; second, Mrs. Mary B. (Overton)
Burnley.
VI. Sarah Pendleton.
VII. James Pendleton.
VIII. Lucy Pendleton.
IX. Thomas Pendleton.

"III. Edmund Pendleton (Henry, Philip), b. September 9,
1721; d. 1803. Married, first, Elizabeth Roy, who died the same year; married, second (1743), Sarah Pollard. There were no children. (Copied from John S. Pendleton's MS. of "Redwood," Culpeper County, Va., May 1st, 1868.)

"The seven children of the first settlers started on a career of multiplication befitting a new country; so that, as late as 1803, if Judge Edmund Pendleton had been in the prime of life, and the most active man in Virginia, it would have been a very serious, if not an impossible, undertaking to have identified and recorded the names of half of them ; whilst he was, in fact, a man of upwards
of eighty years of age when he died. He had, for sixty years, without the intermission of a single year, been laboriously engaged in professional and official duties, usually of great importance. He was for the last twenty years of his life most painfully disabled for any physical activity, by reason of an accident which made him
a cripple, and consigned him to crutches for life.

So he started his own, one of the three male lines in the first generation, and then named the females only until they married into other families. Hence, he calls it simply "Chronology," with that precision of language for which tradition reports him as being proverbial.

"We are requested to publish the following article as a leaf from a work not yet finished, nor, when finished, intended for general circulation — being entirely of a private and personal nature — but because a number of our friends and readers may possibly take some interest in it ! !

"The writer says :
There has lately fallen into my hands a very finished and patriotic discourse, delivered in July, 1855, by Hugh Blair Grigsby before a literary society of the ancient "College of William and Mary" and published by order of the society.

"I shall refer to some of the prominent incidents of Mr. Pendleton's life as set forth in that discourse, and so far only depart from the plan of a simple chronology.

"Mr. Grigsby selected for his theme "The Virginia Convention of 1776." He submitted a performance of over two hundred octavo pages in print, consisting of short biographical sketches of eminent members, and a general description and history of the illustrious body.

"This body consisted of one hundred and twenty-eight members. When it assembled and proceeded to organize, we are told by Mr. Grigsby that Richard Bland and Archibald Gary, two of the most venerable and distinguished citizens of the Colony, concurred in recommending Edmund Pendleton, of Garoline, for President, and he was appointed.

"The author says that Mr. Pendleton at that time as a parlia-mentarian had no equal in the House, a superior nowhere. He had already been a leading member of the "House of Bur- gesses" for five and twenty years, etc., etc., etc.

"After stating his rare combination of qualities, mental and physical, Mr. Grigsby says: 'Of such a man it may be safely said that in whatever view we take of him, or whether we look abroad or at home, a more accomplished personage has rarely presided in a public Assembly.

"'In 1764 he was selected, with George Wythe and Richard
Henry Lee, to prepare the memorial of the King, Lords and Commons of England! In 1773 he was made one of the Committee of Correspondence.

"'In 1774 he was elected to the Convention of that year, and by that body appointed one of the Delegates to the Continental Congress, holding, at the same time, the office of Presiding Justice of Caroline Court and the important and dignified station of County Lieutenant of that county.

"'In 1775 he was re-chosen for Congress, but declined to accept on account of ill health at the time.

"'He was elected to the State Convention of 1775, and to that of 1776, and was chosen President of both bodies, in one unanimous vote, and the other on a vote divided with Thomas Ludwell Lee, Esq., one of the most accomplished gentlemen in Virginia ; and by the unanimous vote of the latter was appointed chairman of the Committee of Public Safety, which was, in point of fact, invested for so long as it lasted with supreme dictatorial power, in civil, as well as military affairs.

"'That body consisted of eleven members, was in the interval of the Sessions of the Convention the Executive of the Colony, and was always in Session. — and Mr. Edmund Pendleton, as its head continued filling the institution until it was superseded by the Constitutional government.'

"'At this the learned lecturer says:

"'... Mr. Pendleton had been called on not by one, but by both parties, to fill all the great posts of the day, the duties of which lie performed with masterly skill.

"'Distinguished as was this remarkable man as a lawyer, as a debater, as a presiding officier of deliberative assemblies, he may be regarded as yet only in the beginning of his wonderful career.

"'He was now in his fifty-fifth year, and as he had been engaged since his fourteenth year, either in the wearing drudgery of a clerk's office under the old regime — in the fatigues and privations of an extensive practice in the County Courts, and in the most responsible trust ever committed to a representative, in all of which he performed his part with the strictest fidelity and honour, and
with the applause of his country.

"'In the possession of an ample fortune, he might now have
sought retirement with a becoming grace, and, closing his career with the extinct dynasty, might have left to the new generation the direction of affairs.

"'Without doubt, had he consulted his own inclinations, he would have retired upon his well-earned fame and fortune and passed the remainder of his life in honorable repose.

"'But Edmund Pendleton had other views of public duty! He
was yet to render most important service to his country, and to win his most durable, if not his most brilliant, title to the public regard.

"'But if his subsequent course in the House of Delegates, in which he filled the chair of Speaker, mingling, however, in debate with ability confessedly unrivalled, and fighting the battles of a party that was insensibly dwindling away, with a vigor most formidable to his opponents; as a reviser of the laws which still bear the impress of his plastic hand; as a member of the Convention of 1788, in which he presided, and in the debates of which he freely engaged: and on the bench of the Court of Appeals, in which he
filled for yet a quarter of a century the highest seat, presiding with an ease and dignity rarely surpassed, with a fullness of knowledge, and readiness in its application, that received the unlimited respect of the bar, as it inspired the universal confidence of the people; with an industry that quailed not, even beneath the weight of
fourscore years, and, above all, with a purity that, even the most delicate case of his life — a case involving issues at once personal, religious and political—the faintest breath of censure never soiled, it is not within the scope of my present design to speak at large.'

"Mr. Grigsby states in the appendix to his discourse: 'It is due to the reputation of Edmund Pendleton, Patrick Henry, and Gov. Nelson, to state a fact which I accidentally discovered some days ago, in the Virginia Gazette of November 2d, 1803. It is there reported that Edmund Randolph, in his address at the funeral of
Edmund Pendleton, stated that the resolution instructing our delegates in Congress to declare independence was drawn by Pendleton, was offered in Convention by Nelson, and was advocated on the floor by Henry.

"As has already been stated on the authority of Mr. Grigsby, Judge Pendleton was offered, immediately on the organization of the Federal Government, a Judgeship under the Government, which he declined. Preferring his position of Chief Justice of Virginia, he continued to discharge the duties of that office until finally, in October, 1803, he fell, 'with the harness on,' at his official
post in the city of Richmond, in his eighty-third year."

"The foregoing as applicable to Edmund Pendleton, personally, is derived from the document prepared by Mr. Grigsby, a gentleman still living (1868), who is well remembered as a very accomplished young gentleman in 1829, and said to be the youngest member of the celebrated State Convention of that year; a gentleman well qualified for the task he undertook and so handsomely performed. I believe he was himself descended from one or more of the eminent men in the Convention; and, besides, is connected with more than one of those gentlemen who represented, at the
time of the Revolution, some of the best families in the Colony — a time when it was no reproach to a man to be a gentle man, or to know who his grandfather was — or how long his name had been known among respectable men.

"Mr. Grigsby, who is in no degree whatever, I believe, related to Mr. Pendleton, may be fairly supposed to be a competent and entirely impartial witness, and though he has given a large share of his discourse to Mr. Pendleton, I content myself with the few and brief quotations already made.

"Mr. Grigsby's notice of Mr. Pendleton is in a very just and friendly spirit — though he was evidently misled in what he says of the early education of Mr. Pendleton. He was not a college-bred man, for he was a posthumous child, with four brothers and two sisters ahead of him, and therefore had no part of what there was left by his father, as the law then was.

"His mother married again while he was yet an infant of tender years, and stepsons in those days were not accustomed to be sent to college, especially if poor. He came to the bar at the age of twenty-one, perhaps as well prepared for his admission as any man that ever qualified at that age at the bar of Virginia, and with a promptness never excelled, certainly, marched right to the front
rank and stood there, primus inter pares, for as long as he remained a practitioner in the courts, which was precisely four and thirty years. For the next twenty-five years the reports of the Supreme Court of Appeals are his history.

"Mr. Grigsby was evidently misled by adopting the error of Mr. West as to Mr. Pendleton's extremely defective education. As to his origin, there was perhaps not a man in the Convention of whom the idea Mr. Grigsby seems to have adopted might not, with as much or more reason, have been advanced, as the writer of this is abundantly able to show Mr. Grigsby, or anybody else.

"It is a surprising circumstance that in so long and so eminent a career Judge Pendleton had never a collision or complaint against him, except in a single instance, and that for an official act, the responsibility of which he divided with ten other gentlemen, and the impropriety or even unkindness of which is very far from being
conceded; but on the contrary, to a man in these times it will appear that the offensive act was perhaps a wise and judicious measure, for it was nothing but an imaginary affront to Col. Henry offered by the "Committee of Safety," of which Mr. Pendleton was chairman.

"Mr. Grigsby tells the tale so clearly, that it leaves us astonished at the fact that there was ever a moment's irritation about it, if in truth there ever was, in the breast of Col. Henry himself.

"Col. Henry had been appointed by the Committee of Safety to the command of a regiment with a tried soldier, Col. Woodford, as Lieutenant-Colonel. Col. Henry, the great orator of the Revolution, and undoubtedly as an orator unrivalled in the world, certainly in America, took it into his head to be also a soldier, for he was as gallant as he was gifted, and was not ...like some of our most distinguished orators (Mr. Chas. Sumner, for ex-
ample), to content himself with having made the war, he was
willing to fight it ! But I adopt the words of Mr. Grigsby as being the best explanation of the transaction:

"'But let the question be decided as it may, the result cannot impeach the integrity or honor of Pendleton alone. He was one of the eleven who composed the committee.

"'On a question touching the true meaning of an act of Assembly. or the laws of prize, the opinion of Pendleton would have had its proper weight with the body; but when the safety of the State, or the honour of the Soldier and a gentleman was involved, would George Mason, who had recently paid to Henry the most splendid compliment that one man of genius ever paid to another; would
John Page, who, alone of all the Council of Dunmore, refused to assent to the proclamation denouncing Henry; would Richard Bland, Thomas Ludwell Lee, Paul Carrington, Dudley Digges, William Cabell, Carter Braxton, James Mercer, and John Tabb, have been guided at such a delicate crisis by a feeling of envy towards a patriot, who, having distinguished himself in the public councils, sought to win honour in another and more dangerous field? On the contrary, if we are disposed to attribute the conduct of Pendleton and his associates to individual jealousy and
the desire to ruin the fortunes of a dreaded rival, would they not have adopted an opposite course and have dispatched Henry, unacquainted as he was with war, through a hostile population to the seaboard, where the British forces, which had been recruited some days before by a reinforcement of regular troops from St. Augustine, were ready to receive him!"

From this point the text continues with succeeding generations to the latter part of the 19th century and covers many of the Pendleton men who fought in the Civil War. It is available on line in a scanned form at http://archive.org/stream/someprominentvir04pecq/someprominentvir04pecq_djvu.txt